Nerd News: Free Speech Chaos at Columbia
Power Line Blog has the video and the links to numerous sources of both news and comment. Just go see for yourself what happened a few days ago. The speaker was Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project.
All I can do is sigh and pound my head against my desk. The radicals of Academistan display their usual "progressive" interpretation of free speech rights: "You can say whatever you like . . . as long as I agree with you. If not, I'll shut you up -- or try to. Because your free speech rights don't matter then."
*Sigh.*
I also have a feeling that Columbia University officials aren't going to do a darn thing, even though the disruptive students are in clear violation of all kinds of disciplinary protocols. Is Academistan ruled by the mob? I fear to know the answer.
You know, all this mess is not, for me, actually about the Minutemen per se. I don't care who the speaker is. I don't care if people disagree with the speaker or even if they think he is the spawn of Satan. I do care that people behave like civilized human beings, capable of rational discourse, who respect the free speech rights of everyone, even (and especially) of people they find disagreeable. Simply trying to shut up everyone you don't like is . . . yes, small-minded and even flat-out tyrannical!
If you really feel so passionately about your opposition, you are perfectly free to stage a counter-demonstration outside. Hold up all the signs and placards you want. Wear all the protest-T-shirts you like. You can go to the speech, behave yourself, and afterwards in the Q-and-A you can ask whatever barbed questions you like to the speaker and engage him in civilized debate. But interrupting the speech, disrupting the event, and employing violence and intimidation are all unacceptable behaviors. Needless to say, the disruptive students probably think of themselves as courageous heroes "standing up to The Man" or something like that.
UPDATE 1: Apparently the big shots at Columbia are . . . blaming the victims. How enlightened. I am completely frustrated with this upside-down world.
UPDATE 2: Today's edition of the Columbia campus newspaper has quotes from some student opponents of Gilchrist. Typically, the students accuse the Minutemen of anti-minority racism, and the students do not deal with the actual issue of illegal immigration. Look, people, it is possible to NOT BE A RACIST BIGOTED PIG and still believe that massive illegal immigration is a real problem that needs solutions. (Unless, of course, you think I actually am a racist bigoted pig.)